Yep... another gift from the 'Great Beige Hunter'.
He's pretty cute...
Recently in Shutter Up Category
Freedom
Originally uploaded by deeleea
The Mother Africa place-holder post from earlier in the week wasn't just random, Africa's been on my mind all week.
I've been listening to the soundtrack to 'The Power of One' and the African video is sound tracked by the 'Mother Africa' my favourite track from that album.
I'll never forget the first time I heard it. My mate Gillian and I were hanging out, I'd not seen her for years, and I haven't seen her since, but I was visiting her small school house in the Taranaki and in the evening we turned the lights out, lit a couple of candles and she played me that track. I was totally changed.
I have loved the music of Africa ever since. And I'm grateful to a bunch of people who've fostered that... Redsaid included, I still love my compilation cds she lovingly made for me.
Anyway, the college I've been studying just put on their end of year production which was written to bring awareness of the work of two aid workers who are members of our churches in Northern Uganda.
They are unbelievably courageous and working against dreadful conditions to raise up a new generation of Ugandan children.
"New" Gandans.
One day I'm going to go there, both to hear the music of Africa and to see and take some small part in the work.
I really hope it's sooner rather than later.
... actually do it.
People have asked and I've said an outright no. More than once.
"N.O. spells NO!"
You get the idea.
"I will not do it Sam I am."
etc.
But in all my circle of friends there's just one person who could have got away with it. Who could have got away with it and done so without me ever actually having said "Yes". (I know, it's a gift... one I'd almost like to have).
And she did it.
She went and got married and had me take the photos.
Not all the photos, mind. Just to shadow the official photographer.
The official photographer, her dad, you know, the one who was walking her down the aisle...
KTHXBAI
Must dash. 1400 pictures to edit - will show you some once the bride has actually seen them...
There are some days when you just wish you hadn't got out of bed.
Today started off innocuously enough, woke in time, (no need for an alarm these days with a cat who demands breakfast at 6).
Got to work on time, (a little early even, hot on the heels of posting niece and nephew one and two's birthday gifts. One a lot late one which may arrive on time).
I did have one wobble in that I stopped for coffee at my NEW favourite cafe. This is fine except that my OLD favourite cafe is next door to the PO wherein I had to post the gifts... The only available carpark was right out front of OFC. So imagine me trying to hide the fact that I have a coffee in hand. OFC has a history of making my coffee when the barista sees my car... Didn't make eye contact, ducked back into the car quick smart to make sure I wasn't spotted... No doubt I'll hear about it next time I'm in...
Anyway, to work, business as usual with the addition of a quick side trip to the city to pick up 'mother of all lenses' to shoot the dancing girls again tonight. (immediately depressed I can't afford a 'mother of all lenses' for myself). All of which appeared to go without incident. Easy.
So, you're probably wondering by now, why on earth I was wishing myself back in bed when the day has so far been so unremarkable.
It actually all didn't go to custard until much later. Post the 'Shoot the Dancers' gig.
The thing with digital pix is that it's all so ephemeral. All you have to show for your night's work is a cartridge that may (or may not) have lots of lovely 0s and 1s which can be translated into rather beautiful works of art. You know in theory that those noughts and ones are arranged artfully because you have a little screen you can preview them on. It's good stuff.
Usually.
You can hear where this is going right? Two hours of observing a night of beauty and truth through a small window and a fat telephoto lens. Two hours and 600 pictures. Two hours and a process of transferring those files from camera to computer that went horribly wrong.
As in insert card = no pictures. Actually that's the short part of the process. It was more like
- Insert card number one, the card with the curtain call photos and transfer pix without incident.
- Idiotically remove card from camera WITHOUT ejecting it first (and learn NEVER to do that again).
- Insert card number, the mother of all cards, the one with the bulk of the pretty pix.
- Scratch head in wonder as to why there are no images there.
- Freak out.
- Call PIA and whimper.
- Try not to think about the fact that your files are gone... gone... gone.
- Console yourself with the thought that you did at least get a whole bunch of quality shots last night.
- Prep the computer to shut down, shoot off an image on the camera to verify that there really isn't anything on the card - it definitely says "Folder is Empty". Whimper again.
- Watch junk on telly to calm down. Whimper a bit more.
Now, this is where I tell you the happy ending.
PIA asked if I might give the card to one of my IT boys in the hope they might fix it, and I initially dismissed it as futile. But there, at one moment, there was a spontaneous thought that occured that maybe they were still on the card, maybe there were recovery options.
Enter Google.
So I searched, found, and downloaded a free trial of a product for complete twits like me, who've done such daft things in the past and set it to start scanning my card. And what do you know, the files were still there.
Cue Massive Sigh of Relief.
The crazy thing is, these photos don't have much value except to the participants and the marketeers who use them to promote successive year's events.
But to me they're art. I wasn't too gutted that they were gone from a work point of view, but the thought of the Art being forever lost was too much to write off. And the purchase of the product has set me back $45. (Money well spent).
So, I ask you Blogosphere, where did that voice come from? That suggestion that I consult the Googracle?
I really didn't expect there to be an answer less still such a good result. And I can tell you I was sending up rocket after rocket by way of prayer in hope (not much in the way of faith) that the fact normal deleting of files takes minutes rather than this apparent instantaneous evaporation may mean they hadn't fully gone. But if If I'd left it and assumed that the files were gone then they surely would have been once I started shooting new pictures over the top of them.
My take on it is this; God does look after his kids, recalcitrant or not, and I'm pretty confident that voice, that whisper was His, (or one of His mates the HG or some errant angel etc. etc.). I can't believe it came from myself. I was too busy feeling miserable.
Either way, I'm rather thankful. And now that I've spent the whole evening recovering files I've barely had a chance to look at them, let alone put them up on flickr.
Time for that tomorrow.
"So, Kiwi-Fi and I got to thinking the other week, trans-Tasmanly speaking. Just how many cutesy cat/pretty flower/mooing cow photos can one Flickr account have? We needed to stretch our imaginations, you know, be a little bit *finger speechmarks* cre-a-tive. (I shamelessly filched the above directly from Fi's Blog, becuase, let's face it, it's funny...)"
So we formed a Flickr Group called *drumroll* 5words and it works like this...
"Welcome to 5words - a photo challenge for those among us who love both language and photography.
Every other Wednesday we will post the new 5 challenge words for the group. The group members then have 2 weeks to come up with 5 photos, one for each word in the challenge.
This is an open group in which members are invited to contribute words they'd like to use in the group discussion pages. Word submissions close on Sunday evening.
As this is about digital photos, you are welcome to submit images that have been Photoshopped too!
Pornographic material is NOT ok and anyone posting it will be banned.
This information is subject to change as we get a feel for how running groups works and as more people get involved!!!
Welcome to 5words, we can't wait to see what you can do! Oh, and don't forget - tag your photos "5words".
If you're up for a challenge in the photographic sense, come along and play - our next group of words will be up on Wednesday.
And if you want to see what we came up with for our challenge words this week? Go here... 
